Jack's First Mardi Gras

Jack had another first this past weekend. We took him home to Mandeville for Mardi Gras. Friday night we took him to Orpheus, the local Mandeville Parade and a parade that I grew up going to. We were very fortunate to get to watch the parade with The Vitranos. James' office is on the route so we were able to park there, which was great because we didn't have to lug everything and we had nice clean restrooms. Thanks Kylie and James for having us!!

We had to get there about 2 hours before the parade came to be able to park before they closed the streets off. Jack was great. The kids can have free run because the streets are blocked off, so that was perfect for Jack. For those of you that didn't grow up with Mardi Gras let me explain where this had came from. There are people that walk up and down the street while you are waiting for the parades with grocery carts full of junk. I remember being little and begging to get something off of those carts and we were always told "no". I understand now because it is just more junk to find something to do with on top of all of the loot that you catch. Well, we weren't there 10 minutes and Cookie was buying this hat for Jack. It is precious and he loved it. About an hour later they were back at the cart buying more junk, but Jack loved it.


Another Mardi Gras tradition is to eat Popeyes Chicken. You are there so long waiting on the parade that you are basically tailgaiting. A staple is Popeyes Chicken and biscuits. Kylie had lots of food and we brought Popeyes for everyone to munch on. Here is Jack taking a dinner break. He loved the chicken.

Here is Jack and Brandon waiting on the parade. You can see that the hat is gone. It didn't last very long. We now have a runny nose and cough because of it.

We attempted to take a family picture but there was so much going on that Jack couldn't be bothered.

Cookie and Kim bought and painted a ladder seat for Jack to sit in while the parade came by. We were nervous that he wouldn't want to sit in it, but he loved it. He caught so much stuff and had a blast.

The rest of the weekend he hung some with Gigi and Papa and with Cookie and Kim while Brandon and I enjoyed some Mardi Gras in New Orleans. All in all we had a great time and I think that Jack really enjoyed his first Mardi Gras.